


A Singular Touch of Grace

by the_gabih



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Body Horror, Feral Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Folklore, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Monsterfucking, but make it weird
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:46:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29716686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_gabih/pseuds/the_gabih
Summary: Sylvain is the dutiful son of the Margrave Gautier, dutiful and bored enough that when an outlying village calls for aid, he rides out at once. He's not expecting to find something out there older than his father's castle, and he's certainly not expecting it to drag him along on its path towards redemption. But if he has a duty to the land, then that must include the ancient, mad forest god residing in it, surely?
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Sylvain Jose Gautier, minor Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	1. Ice

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god, I had SUCH a good time writing this! Enormous thanks to [@royalcorvids](https://twitter.com/royalcorvids/status/1365393135229145090?s=19) for their stunning art of Monstermitri and Sylvain (and for their shameless encouragement of my trains of monster-y/quasi-fairytale thought), you are a star and I'm so glad we got paired up.
> 
> Title from the Sting song [A Thousand Years](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn7eWTsj9wU), because I love me some sweeping Drama.
> 
> Enjoy!

The Gautier hall is packed, smoky, and stinking of dogs and burnt food. Sylvain’s used to it, to the thick haze that settles over the crowd on judgment or feast days, and to picking his way through the mass of sleeping bodies when he wants to get out at night. Not that ‘night’ says much, exactly, when you live in a land where the sun has not emerged from the clouds in generations.

There are stories told about her loss. There’s stories about everything- there’s nothing else to do of an evening- but they always seem to circle back to the sky, and the sun, and the endless dark, or the grey half-light that marks the closest thing they have to daytime. 

The hall of Sylvain’s father is old. Legend has it that Pan built it himself, hewing the oak and shaping it with his great strength until it bowed and bent and was tamed.

That was in the old days, of course. When people believed things could be tamed. 

Now, amidst the endless twilight outside, Sylvain steps through the smoke and half-light. The warriors and fishermen cast looming shadows over the walls through the smoke haze from the fire pit, and there are enough of Miklan’s friends still at court that there are no few sullen faces in amongst the calls of welcome.

His father is waiting at the dais. He had best not tarry. There is a supplicant kneeling by his feet- how they got past the guards, Sylvain does not know. The Margrave Gautier tends to be disinclined to hear his people out; in truth, they rule the north in little but name, with the roads so often snowed under.

“Nobody with any sense would live inland,” Sylvain remembers his father saying, more than once. “Those that do are under no protection of ours. They’re on their own.”

And yet, here one of them is; at least, going by the thick layers of furs, even indoors. Perhaps the houses are not as warm further inland. Perhaps whoever this is does not fully trust the company they have found themself in, even after being escorted this far.

Smart move.

Sylvain weaves around his father’s honor guard to reach the dais and kneels, because it is his father’s right. The dogs lolling on the floor yip and push their noses towards him to be petted, and Sylvain buries his hands in their fur. It's a welcome distraction from his father’s furrowed brow, which never bodes well.

“-please,” the figure begs. “We would not ask, but we have no warriors of our own. Even the animals have fled. We are starving.”

The warriors are very pointedly not looking at anyone else. Sylvain can’t say he blames them. Whatever this creature is, being mauled in a fight will win them little more than fleeting glory- and glory will not help them hunt or fish for their families. His father could send Miklan, but it’s a toss-up whether or not he’d bother doing anything, or just use the villagers as bait while he wears the beast down.

The Margrave looks over at him, and Sylvain knows what he’s going to say before he even opens his mouth. “My son will go and take care of this beast. Stay with us awhile. Eat your fill. When you have recovered, if he has not returned, then you know your village’s fate.”

-

The ride to the village is long and slow. Sylvain had forgotten what it was to be away from the shorefront; being buffeted by ice cold winds is one thing, but the sheer depth of the snow further inland is worrying. Is the land ahead clear, or thicketed, or an iced-over pool waiting to be slipped on, or to give way underfoot? There’s no way to tell, and especially not with the constant snowfall piling up atop his furs. On a ship there is at least usually something to do. On land, all he can manage is huddling in on himself, trying to shield his face from the worst of the snowstorms.

When he reaches the treeline, he could almost weep. Immediately the wind dies down, leaving him with space to breathe and look around instead of simply downward. There are faint tracks in the snow; small creatures that have also sought refuge in the shelter of the towering pines. And while there is no path to be seen, the wider gaps between the trees offer a hint of where he should go. Clearly someone has travelled this way, else they would be as dense as the forest around them.

Sure enough, amidst the shifting expanse of brown, green and white, there looms something solid; dark wood and snow and hunks of turf, piled atop each other in a squat, rectangular shape. It’s a world away from the vaulted wood of his father’s hall, but Sylvain feels far more relieved to stumble upon it than he ever has been to return home. He clears his throat.

“Over the dark water,” he calls, his voice tracing the melody of the ancient song. Strange to think that there had been dark waters then, uncovered by ice. It’s become little more than a greeting now, a formality, but he still likes to let his mind wander. “Over the dark water, I saw a flock of swans.”

Eventually a dark shape emerges from the doorway, hunched and squinting at him suspiciously. When they catch sight of Palka and Sylvain’s cap- snow-covered though it is- the tension seems to leech from them at once, leaving them pale and shaking as they hold out a hand. “You are the prince?”

“Eh. Sorta. Mostly.” Sylvain gives Palka a pat on the flank before swinging down from her back; there is at last a trail ahead of him that human legs can follow. “I heard you’re having a monster of a problem?”

The joke, feeble as it is, falls flat and is trodden underfoot as Sylvain steps forward. The person before him nods. “Thank the gods you came, serah. He has haunted our woods these past weeks. Says he will not leave without blood.”

Sylvain frowns. “He wants a sacrifice? Or combat?”

“No one knows. No one dares ask. We cannot- you must know, serah, there are so few of us. We have no youths to spare to sate a monster’s appetite.”

“Nor will you need to,” Sylvain assures them. He can see more houses dotted ahead; as they talk, some doors open a crack to satisfy some unseen watcher’s curiosity, while others emerge into the clearing to give their would-be saviour a wary look. Sylvain can understand the anxiety. He is by no means the most physically imposing of his father’s men, but nevertheless, here he is. “Where is the creature?”

“He went further up the hill, to the caves. This way, serah.”

His guide leads the way between a collection of small, sloping huts, each with a slow curl of smoke creeping from the top. Palka huffs and snorts, stamping her hooves on the frozen mud underfoot and a small child squeaks and darts to hide behind her parents’ legs. The children at home aren’t allowed outside unless they’re wearing enough layers to make them as round as they are tall. That Sylvain can still make out her form is a worrying sign. “Have times been hard, here?”

“Where have they not been? There is precious little food, and less by the year. More of our houses lie empty with each generation. Perhaps the monster is merely here to hasten our end.”

Sylvain sets his jaw. This… this he had not heard about. For words of such despair to be said out in the open- when he looks around, he can see those in earshot nodding. Some hold each other a little closer. For all his talk of defending their borders, he cannot remember his father or his men ever holding court on this place, or how any of the other villages in their fiefdom are faring. “Not if I have anything to say about it. When I return, we will see if we can bring food in from the coast. We will keep you safe.”

The look he gets in return- the slightly tilted eyebrows and flat mouth- is distinctly disbelieving, but he supposes he’s earned that. Ever since the long winter set in, the Margraviate has mostly looked out for itself. Even if he means to change that, how could they know he meant it as more than empty platitudes?

“You can start with the monster.” The guide raises an arm to point to a thin, wending path. Whatever has walked it must be big, with footprints that look close to those of an enormous wolf. Sylvain swallows.

“Good idea. I’ll, uh. Be right back.” He gives the watching villagers his best jaunty salute before pushing on up the hill, following the tracks. It’s helpful of whatever it is to have left such distinct marks to trace, really; before very long, he can see a dark shape up ahead through the trees.

Sylvain ducks under a branch, and suddenly it becomes apparent why the village is so worried. The guy is huge- taller than Sylvain, certainly, and taller than most of his father’s warriors, too. He looks at first like a statue, he stands so still and unmoving, but then the massive pile of furs begins to turn. Sylvain realises that what he had taken to be the topmost fur is in fact hair, thick and shaggy, forming a wild sort of halo around a gaunt face. Two tusks stick out from the lower jaw, one like an overly-long pair of canines, the other curling up from the corners of the mouth.

Yeah. Yeah, okay. If he’d come across that without warning, he’d have been pretty scared too. Hell, if it had approached his father’s hall, the warriors would have speared it without a second thought.

“Uh,” Sylvain says, cleverly. “Hi.”

The creature grunts. 

“Not much of a conversationalist, huh? That’s fine. This doesn’t need to be a whole thing.” Sylvain waves a hand vaguely to demonstrate what a ‘thing’ might be. “I just came out here to ask what it was you wanted. You’ve really freaked those guys out, y’know.”

The creature grunts again. “I do not see why. It was a very simple request.”

“What for?”

“I require blood.”

Sylvain blinks. He gets why there was all that panic now. “Oh. Uh. That’s… okay. I mean, not really okay. People kinda need their blood.”

“I hardly need all of it. Just a few drops. Barely enough for a mouthful.”

“You’re gonna...bite them?”

“You misunderstand. Either you consent to give me yours, or I will need to look elsewhere.”

“What do you need it for, exactly?”

“That is my business. But once the blood was given, that would be the end of it.”

“So why not just… take it? Why skulk around out here and freak them out?”

“Because they need to consent. If it is taken from an unwilling subject, the spell will fail.”

“...huh.” Sylvain’s heard plenty of old wives’ tales about magic, but they never involved consent, from what he remembers in his father’s hall. Then again, his father had never put much importance on magic that didn’t keep you warm and fed. “But it could be anyone, though?”

“Anyone willing. All I need is one person who will say yes.”

“Well,” Sylvain says slowly. “I’m right here. If I say yes and give you my blood, will you leave these guys alone?”

The creature’s eye fixes on him, and gods below, it is very bright. “Yes.”

“Oh. Right. Well, then.” Sylvain holds out an arm. “Here I am. Got a knife here, if that works?”

“Not here. Follow me.”

Sylvain very much misses Palka. The snow here is hip-deep, though the man ahead of him barely seems to notice as he plows through it. Sylvain sticks to following in his trail like a wolf after deer. The trees draw in closer around them, the only sounds those of the stranger’s strong legs against the snow and Sylvain’s feet on the packed stuff he leaves in his wake. No wind, not even a faint rustling of the snow-capped branches overhead. No animals scurrying between the trees, or perched overhead waiting to pounce.

It feels eerie. Wrong. Whoever this guy is, he’s sending a shiver down Sylvain’s spine, though he can’t yet tell if it’s a good or bad one. 

And he has a tail, swishing out behind him with each step. Is that for balance? To flatten out the snow? Sylvain cocks his head to study it and almost walks straight into the stranger when he stops moving. The forest is darker here, the trees growing in thick copses around them, and the snow has been tramped down in a tiny clearing to allow some kind of sigil to be etched into it.

With a skull in the middle. That’s… encouraging. And bones to the side, too, just outside the sigil, like they’re being kept back for something. What the fuck kind of magic has Sylvain managed to get himself caught up in? Still, it’s way too late to back out now. Sylvain pulls out his knife, but the stranger already has one in his hand. It looks ancient, the blade keenly sharp with an ornamented hilt that stands in stark contrast with the guy’s… everything else. “You, uh. You came prepared, huh?”

The stranger stares at him. Sylvain isn’t sure whether to stare back at his eye, at the empty socket (presumably not that one) or at the rest of him. He’s still taking it all in, to be honest. The horns and the tail and the- the sheer  _ size _ of him, in both height and breadth.

He’s staring at Sylvain with a flat look. “Yes,” he says, like the question was dumb, which really, it kinda was. But in Sylvain’s defence, none of his practice at holding court or dealing with the inhabitants of his father’s land has ever involved a weirdly hot forest monster. Who is still staring at him. Why-? Oh. Right. Sylvain rolls up his sleeve.

“How do you want me?” Do forest gods do innuendo? Do they even do, like, socialising? Sylvain is way overthinking this, probably. The creature steps forward and Sylvain holds up a hand. “Wait, wait, wait. Before we do this, can I at least know your name?”

The bright blue eye studies him closely. “Why?”

“Well, normally I save knife play for the second date. I figure we’ve gotta skip the first date stuff here, but I’m still pretty fond of the part where I know who it is that’s, uh, penetrating me.” He winks lavishly, which- oh no. Is the stranger gonna think he’s mocking his one eyed-ness? That’s definitely a frown, but Sylvain can’t tell what kind. And gods below, the man’s teeth are sharp. He could probably just bite into Sylvain’s arm and do the whole thing that way, which shouldn’t be a thought that is hot, but here they are.

“Dimitri,” he rumbles eventually. This close, Sylvain can feel the heat of his breath, of his body, even through the furs. Are they his fur? Something else’s? Sylvain can feel his pulse picking up.

Gods, he’s pathetic. But hey, pathetic blood is still blood. “Well. Nice to meet you, Dimitri. I’m, uh, Sylvain.”

Dimitri stares at him a little longer. Then in one quick motion he tugs Sylvain’s glove off and swipes his knife against Sylvain’s palm. It’s so sharp it doesn’t even hurt at first; it’s only when Sylvain curls his fingers instinctively in on themselves that it begins to sting. He hisses, but holds still. He’s had way worse. And besides, watching the blood drip down onto the snow is pretty distracting.

The first drop mars the white with vivid red. The second broadens the pool, as does the third, and suddenly it touches the sigil. It launches out then like a fire through wood, racing along every line and drawing inwards, inwards, inwards until it looks almost like the snow is moving.

Wait. No. The snow looks like it’s moving because it is, shifting and rippling and drawing in towards the middle of the sigil to heap itself up over the skull. Dimitri pushes Sylvain abruptly back as the mound slowly begins to rise, inch by inch, the snow hardening to translucent ice as it rises and begins to form a shape. There’s a head, with glass sculpture-perfect hair cascading down over tiny shoulders.

It’s a child. The skull was a child’s, or little more than one. Sylvain breathes a slow exhale and instinctively moves to crouch as a torso rises up, then legs, the ice shot through with lines of red that look almost like veins.

Sylvain has never seen anything quite so lovely, or so terrifying, in all his life. And then it moves, looking around with a low creak as the ice of its body learns to be malleable and living in a way it has clearly never been before.

“Hey,” Sylvain says, keeping his voice low and soft like he would for a little kid just woken up from a nightmare. “I’m Sylvain. What’s your name?”

The- creature? Girl? Girl- turns to look at him. He can see the hollows of the skull’s sockets through her glassy eyes, and when she opens her mouth, the voice that comes from her is the low cracking rumble of ice shifting underfoot.

“Okay. I’m, uh, not sure I can pronounce that, if I’m honest,” Sylvain tells her, with his best slightly bashful grin, his brain already skipping back through the tales he can remember. He’d give her a more usual name, but that doesn’t feel quite right here. “Gonna have to come up with a nickname. How about, uh. Snegurka. Sneggy? Snegurochka? How’s that sound?”

Another rumbling sound. Sylvain will have to figure out what that means later, but going by her face she doesn’t look too upset, which is a start. Now he just has to figure out what’s up with Dimitri. He pushes himself back to his feet and looks round; Dimitri’s already wandered off, back to the clearing’s edge to look out across the forest. Maybe he can see more of it than Sylvain can, because his visibility is almost nothing beyond the borders of their little spell circle thingy.

“So, uh. We’ve got her back now?”

“No,” Dimitri growls, sharp enough to make Sylvain jump a little.

“What do you mean, no?”

“Exactly that. This-” he waves a hand back towards the snow child- “is a failure. An echo. Nothing more.”

Sylvain has the sudden urge to run back and cover her ears. Does she even hear like that? Can she hear, full stop? He has no idea. He never thought he’d get this protective over what is essentially a large icicle with weird bloodstains inside. “Okay, no, she’s not a failure. She’s just… the spell didn’t work. Is that what you’re saying? But that’s not her fault.”

For that, he gets the full force of Dimitri’s eye turned on him- but this time, he doesn’t falter. Not so much as a quiver in his thickly furred boots. “Look,” he says, softer this time. “So the first try didn’t work. That’s why you kept some stuff back, isn’t it? So you could try again.”

“And if that does not work?”

Sylvain shrugs. “Try again, I guess. I mean, you’ve got her spine, her- are those her ribs? Gods.” He shudders, casting a sidelong glance at the spare bones to the side.

“Her heart, too.”

“And her- okay, yeah, that too.” Sylvain rather regrets pursuing this particular course of encouragement. “So you can try again. A few times more, even.”

“And the failure?”

Dimitri is eyeing the snow child, who stares blankly back. Sylvain takes an instinctive step forward and slightly to the side to assert some kind of protection over the kid. “I’ll keep an eye on her. You can just focus on your godly magic stuff. Sound like a plan?”

“Hn. Very well. But do not let it wander far.”

“Don’t worry,” Sylvain tells him. “I’m not good for much, but I’m great with kids. So, where to next?”

Dimitri’s already turned his back, leaving a strange pattern of pawprints and swipes from his cloak on the snow behind him. “The forest,” he grunts. Sylvain tilts his head.

“But I thought we were already in a- never mind. C’mon, sweetheart. We’d better get going.”

It’s probably weird, but when Snegurochka takes his hand, Sylvain gets this odd little thrill, almost like she’s his. Which she kind of is, in a way. Not that she’d ever be allowed near his father’s place. She’d probably melt anyway.

...which is not a thought Sylvain is going to think about right now. Focus. First Palka, then whatever forest Dimitri is so hellbent on reaching. One step at a time.


	2. Wood

This doesn’t look much like a forest. Not that Sylvain knows a great deal about them- he’s been a coastal boy all his life- but the last one they were in had a lot more trees. Those were skinnier though, slender pale birches stretching up overhead. The ones here are thicker, rounder, curving into strange twisted shapes outlined by the snow.

At least, the ones that are still standing do. There are precious few of those. Most of them stop somewhere between knee- and waist height, their tops jagged and lopsided like a mast after a shipwreck. The ground forms strange shapes too, almost like it’s forming ripples out from some central point. Dimitri crests them easily but Sylvain struggles to keep up, his feet crunching down through the snow and slipping on the packed ice underneath.

And it’s not just his own footing he has to keep an eye on now, either. Snegurochka is trundling dutifully along beside him, staring wide-eyed at each and every tree and rock and twig they encounter as though she’s never seen anything like it before- which Sylvain supposes she hasn’t. For all that she looks like a child of nine, perhaps even ten years, she’s only existed for a few days. He wasn’t sure how well Palka was going to take to the strange new load, but they seem to be getting on just fine while he huffs and puffs and does his best not to faceplant directly into the snow.

When Dimitri stops, he could almost cry with relief. The mounds of pushed up earth and ice abruptly give way to a huge crater in the ground. The trees here aren’t even standing at all; they’re shattered wrecks, torn apart and then frozen in place. The snow’s stopped, and the grey daylight traces along the weird, wild patterns of the wreck.

Dimitri, after spending the better part of half a week trudging on determinedly through the snow, isn’t moving. Sylvain would think he was trying to figure out the best way down- the ice and snow up the steep sides makes for a potentially lethal combo- but he’s not looking at the crater walls. His gaze has gone strangely distant, where before it was knife-sharp wherever it settled. Sylvain gives Palka a gentle pat, offers up a smile to Snegurochka’s low ice-scrape of a questioning noise, and trudges forward to go stand by Dimitri.

“You okay?”

Dimitri flinches as though the question had been something physical. Before Sylvain can say anything further, he vaults over the crater’s edge, his paws carrying him down to land with a surprising grace at its heart.

Show off.

Sylvain rolls his eyes and turns back, pointing a determined finger at Palka and Snegurochka. “Stay here, okay? I’ll be right back.”

There’s another slow, crackling noise from Snegurochka. “Yeah, I know,” Sylvain tells her. “But it’s dangerous. You can watch, okay?”

He makes it down the crater rather less gracefully than Dimitri had. Sure, he kind of had a climbing route planned out, but it all goes to shit when his boot slips on a rock and he finds himself tumbling abruptly downwards.

His poor ass. May it rest in pieces. His back’s none too happy with him either as he pushes himself up from his heap on the ground. He’s hoping Snegurochka didn’t see that, but when he turns his head to look, there she is, making a light, airy noise that sounds very much like laughter.

“Urgh,” Sylvain groans, rubbing the snow off of and the kinks out of his back. “See? This is why I told you not to come down. Now just- stay there, okay?”

Dimitri’s bent over, sweeping snow off the weird heaps of the ground with his hands and tail. Slowly, he unearths mounds of wood, splintered and broken all across the crater. Sylvain tries to be a little more careful as he steps forward, for both the sake of his back and whatever Dimitri’s looking for under there.

Which, as it turns out, is the wood itself. He picks up a branch, grunts, throws it aside. Then another, larger one. A smaller branch about the length of Snegurochka's arm is swept up into his arms. Sylvain clears his throat.

“You want any help with that, buddy?”

Dimitri ignores him, which is fine. Sylvain can just take a moment to stand still and watch. It’s kinda nice seeing him from the front of a bit, instead of just his back up ahead on the trail. His paws seem almost dainty as they move carefully across the snow, his claws reaching out to carefully pluck what he needs from the pile. There’s a frown on his face and a furrow in his brow that seem to mirror the curves of his horns and tusks.

Sylvain is distracted enough by the sight that he doesn’t notice the footsteps behind him until there’s a sudden cold press of metal against his throat. Sylvain yelps and looks up to see a very pissed-off looking guy standing over him, holding a sword- except that instead of skin, he has what looks like bark. A dryad? Here? But Sylvain thought they were all-

“What,” the stranger asks, his voice as sharp as a coastal wind, “are you doing here?”

“Felix,” Dimitri breathes, like it’s the first full inhale he’s taken in ages, almost like a prayer. His eye is wide and bright in a way Sylvain hasn’t seen from him yet. Then he shakes himself. “It’s none of your concern. I am here to right what is wrong.”

“What, you’re going to bring them all back?”

Dimitri shakes his head. “That will not restore the sun.”

The sun? Oh, good. Sylvain had almost stopped feeling like he’d stepped into something way too big and weird for him to handle. Nice of these guys to remind him. He swallows and opens his mouth to ask if the sword at his throat can maybe be moved just a tiny bit, but the dryad gets there first.

“And the mortal? What, is he going to be fuel for this fire like they fuelled the last?”

Dimitri growls. “There is no war, Felix.”

“The war was just an excuse,” The dryad- Felix- hisses. “A reason for you to unleash the beast that was there all along. You don’t need it now. We can all see you for what you are, boar.”

“Felix.” And oh, Sylvain can’t help but shiver at that voice. “Stand down.”

Sylvain feels the faint tremor in the blade at his neck before it is withdrawn. When he looks up, Felix’s limbs are trembling, his arms over-stiff at his sides as his sword clatters to the ground. “What did you do?”

“It does not matter. Come, Sylvain. We must finish this.”

His claws shriek against the ice now as he scratches the same sigil from the woods into the ground, then reaches into a pouch and draws out one small bone at a time. They’re an odd, curved shape; it’s not until he’s set three sets down in a row that Sylvain realises they’re ribs.

“Gods,” he mutters. “The fuck happened to her?”

“He did,” Felix says, still unmoving, still vibrating with what looks- even on wood- very much like barely-suppressed rage. “Like he happened to all the rest of us who were fighting for him. To my father, to my _brother_.”

He spits the words out like throwing a knife, but Dimitri barely flinches. He holds out his hand again, his eye fixed on Sylvain, who is a little more hesitant to offer up his blood this time, considering… all of this. What if something bad happens? What if it strengthens Dimitri, and he just goes back to what he sounds like he was like before? What if he decides he’s got what he wants now, and he doesn’t need the first, inferior copy? 

Well. Pissing him off probably isn’t going to help, either way. And hey, best case scenario, he gets another cute little ice kid out of it. Take that, dad. Sylvain will find heirs his _own_ way. He holds out his arm, and Dimitri drags the knife across the barely-closed cut. Sylvain hisses, but clenches his fist and watches as the bright red splashes down to the frozen wood underneath.

Then it, too, begins to shift. Where the snow and ice had been fluid, this is more jerky as twigs and splinters snap together to knit a head and spine and limbs. The red is almost invisible in places; in others it is a bright tiny slit in the wooden skin, or dancing between the joints, and Sylvain gets an odd lurching feeling as this new child slowly staggers to her feet. She’s so vulnerable, even more so than the first. 

Dimitri scoffs, but this time he does not turn away, even though this is clearly not the weird sun reincarnation thing he was looking for. 

“Cybele,” Sylvain decides. He’s had a lot of time to think on the walk down, and the old name fits this graceful, patchwork thing well. She’s smaller than her sister, and when Sylvain holds out his hands to her, strange wild weeds and flowers sprout from her wooden skin. She squeaks and teeter-totters into his open arms, tiny white buds bursting in tightly-packed groups across her arms as Sylvain laughs delightedly. “Look at you! Aren’t you pretty?”

“Sure. For a reanimated corpse,” Felix huffs. 

“She’s _pretty_ ,” Sylvain says again. Cybele croons like a tree bending in the wind and waves a slightly awkwardly-shaped arm over Sylvain’s shoulder, and he turns to see- “Palka!”

The deer trots forward, apparently nonplussed by the fact that she ought to still be at the top of the crater. Atop her back, Snegurochka sings happily, apparently delighted in her ability to do exactly the opposite of what Sylvain had told her to. He’s starting to understand why the parents back at the hall always looked so tired. “Come to meet your new sister, huh?”

Another crackling noise, this time echoed by a strange groaning sound from Cybele, who reaches up her flowering hands to the new arrival. Sylvain grins. “Yeah. Looks like you two are gonna get along just fine.”

Off to one side, Dimitri touches a hand to Felix’s arm. Felix moves immediately away to grab his sword, like some invisible restraints have been released. “Stay away from me.”

“Felix-”

“No!” Felix shakes his head. “You- you took everything from me. Destroyed everyone. And then you left us to pick up the pieces, and now you come back only to cannibalise their bodies, and for what? Just to bring her back again?”

“Felix. I did not take anything from Glenn,” Dimitri says, his voice pitched lower than before. “Or Rodrigue. They have done enough for me.”

“They’ve done far more than that, and you know it,” Felix snaps, though his eyes shift to fix on Cybele. Sylvain wouldn’t call himself an expert on dryad expressions, having known a grand total of two at this point in his life and that only for a few moments, but he looks a little less angry than before.

Cybele reaches out a hand to touch it to Snegurochka’s, then quickly draws it back with a high-pitched squeak when the red vein of the underside catches on Snegurochka’s ice. Sylvain winces and reaches out his mittened hand as a barrier between them. “Oof, ow, okay. We’re gonna have to be a bit careful with each other, alright? Here.”

He unwraps his scarf and wraps it gently down Cybele’s arms and hands as both children watch, wide-eyed. He doesn’t much need it right now, it’s started getting warmer since they left the woods near that village; and besides, she looks cute with the woven red-and-grey of the scarf pattern against the deep brown of her wood.

“Not like that.” Sylvain blinks, startled, as Felix pushes past him and tugs the scarf into place so that it avoids Cybele’s joints. He loops it loosely around her elbows and shoulders and she giggles, squirming and reaching out for him with her clumsy arms. “There,” Felix says, plucking her from Sylvain’s arms and holding her out to get a better look. “Like that.”

“Huh. Good to know. Is that- do you have kids?”

The look Felix gives him could wither any of Cybele’s tiny flowers, were it directed at her instead. “No. Just a few hundred years’ experience of living in this body, if that counts.”

“Got it,” Sylvain says quickly. A mental note: do not fuck with Dimitri’s friends. Are they friends? Sylvain can’t tell. There’s definitely history there, that much is obvious. “Don’t worry, I’m more than happy to defer to the experts.”

“Well, considering you were idiotic enough to throw your lot in with the boar, you could clearly do with more of those in your life.”

Cybele giggles again and touches her hand to Felix’s. Tiny white buds appear slowly, almost reluctantly, in a mirror of hers where she presses her fingertips. Sylvain glances round; Dimitri is still standing a little way off from them, pacing the sigil in slow steps and occasionally crouching down to examine it more closely. Sylvain swallows.

“So, uh. You and him.”

“Don’t. We’re not friends. Not even close.” The buds on Felix’s hand seem to wilt a little, and Cybele frowns down at them.

“Because of what happened to your family?”

“Oh, it started well before that. That was just the point of no return. If you want my advice, you’ll wait until he’s asleep and run before he decides to either kill you or abandon you like he did his old playmates.”

Playmates? Sylvain frowns. Somehow, he can’t quite imagine Dimitri being young enough to play. He looks over, trying to fit the brightness of Snegurochka and Cybele to the hulking figure at the heart of the crater, and fails. “You were one of them?”

“Was. Before he lost his mind and killed his sister over some petty squabble.”

“A petty squabble that carved chunks out of the ground?” Sylvain offers, because he’s becoming increasingly sure that the place they’re standing didn’t start out like that. Going by the way Felix’s furrowed brow deepens, he’s got it right.

“The affairs of gods will do that, if you’re not careful. I tried putting a leash on him, but it didn’t work. Nothing worked.” Felix is staring at Dimitri now, too, but the look on his face isn’t the anger of before. “He doesn’t listen. He’s never listened. Too fucking stubborn.”

Tucked away in his hair, a new flower is beginning to bloom, deep blue arcing out around the spots of black and white at its heart. Sylvain raises an eyebrow.

“So what I’m getting from this is that you’re in love with him.”

Felix hisses. “What? Absolutely not. What the fuck would give you that idea?”

“Oh, y’know,” Sylvain says, watching pale yellow buds unfurl along Felix’s cheekbones. “Just a hunch.”

Felix’s eyes narrow and he reaches his hands up to rub over his face. His scowl deepens as he finds the buds, and he twists his fingers to tug them sharply out. “No. _No_.”

Sylvain holds his hands up. “Okay! I didn’t mean- I’m sorry.”

He’d missed the way the wood-knots of Cybele’s eyes are round and beautiful and fixed on Felix’s face, particularly the parts leaking sap where he’d tugged out the flowers. Before he can realise what she’s thinking, she yanks at the flowers in her own cheeks, and then immediately wails in pain.

Felix’s eyes are wide. He looks almost stricken as Sylvain dives in to gather Cybele up in his arms. “Hey, hey,” he croons, gently nudging her hands away from the flowers she hasn’t yet tugged out. “Just ‘cause a grown-up does something doesn’t mean we have to copy them. Okay?”

Cybele continues to wail, sounding like a tree bending against a hurricane wind. Sylvain rocks her gently, unsure of how exactly he should comfort a child made of wood. The little flowers on her arms are closing in on themselves, perhaps in case it happens again, and the scarf hangs loose as her splintery fingers dig into Sylvain’s overcoat. He gives her back a gentle pat, running his hand over the smoother wood of her limbs until she begins to calm down.

“Okay,” he murmurs. “We’re just gonna go take a walk, okay? That way, everyone’s got a little bit of space to calm down before we try and talk again. You okay with keeping an eye on Dimitri for a while? We’ll meet you up there.” Sylvain points up to the spot where he’d left Palka and Snegurochka before. Felix sets his jaw.

“I’m not some guard dog, at your beck and call.”

“I know. Just figure you two have some stuff to hash out, is all. We’ll see you in a bit.”

And with a practiced ease born of having to spend significant amounts of time in a cramped space, and knowing when to get out before tempers reach a head, Sylvain nudges Palka back up the path Snegurochka points out to him. When he turns round, there’s still a deep blue flower tucked into Felix’s hair, and the beginnings of one with many more petals entwined with it. Sylvain smiles to himself. Maybe Dimitri’s not quite as alone as he seemed to be, when Sylvain first met him.

He just has one thing left to do before they go.

-

Back home, if there was a body to be buried, the Gautiers would follow their old customs. Set it in a slender boat, drench it in oil, set it aflame and push it out to sea; a final offering to the sea god who had fed and nurtured them all their lives. Then they’d use branches to brush at the snow and hide their tracks, so evil spirits couldn’t follow the body to its resting place.

But when the body in question is a dead tree, the idea of setting fire to it seems a little insensitive, so Sylvain improvises, taking a tradition here, another there. Once he’s picked up a few small stones, Snegurochka and Cybele get the idea and start enthusiastically grabbing pebbles and bringing them over to present to him with a level of delighted gravitas that keeps a steady smile on his face. They pile them up like a cairn of old at the head of the pathway down, and when they’re done Sylvain finds a cluster of fir tree branches to drag over the ground beyond the edge of the crater, leaving a pattern that looks almost like that of Dimitri’s cape.

It’s not really traditional at all, but it feels like better than nothing.

“What are you doing?”

Dimitri’s gruff voice startles Sylvain into dropping one of the branches. “Oh, shit. Uh. Hi?”

He’s fixed by that eye again, bright and blue and narrowed. The prickle of Dimitri’s protective fury makes the hair on Sylvain’s neck stand on end. “What. Are you. Doing?”

“Oh, right.” Sylvain clears his throat, ignoring the flush rising in his cheeks as he gestures to the mound. “It’s, uh. I mean, I don’t really know how, but it’s supposed to keep the dead safe, y’know? Make sure they’ve always got a home to come back to. I mean, it’s not very good, but…”

He trails off. Dimitri’s gaze has wandered to the stones and branches, and his head tilts slowly to the side.

“What do you need me to do?”

Sylvain blinks. He’d kind of expected… well, he doesn’t know what he’d expected. He barely knows Dimitri, and the picture Felix had painted hadn’t exactly been a kind one. But the question seems genuine enough, and the path round the crater would be a long and slippery one for Sylvain. Maybe Dimitri’s paws can handle it better. “Here,” he says, holding out the branches. “Drag those round in a circle, all the way round there. It’s, uh. It’s what we do. Like we’re marking out the space around them, I guess. Putting up a barrier so nothing bad can get through.”

Dimitri nods, and before Sylvain can blink the branches are gone from his hands. Cybele and Snegurochka go tottering after him, and Sylvain feels a flush of warmth in his chest at the sight of their tiny shapes next to Dimitri’s bulk.

Okay. Almost done. He doesn’t have much in the way of food to offer up, but he digs out the last of the dried whale meat and berries he’d brought with him and sets them out piece by piece at the base of the cairn, making sure to dig out a little divot for a makeshift bowl. It strikes him a moment later that dryads, being plants, probably do not eat meat, but it seems rude to take it back; and before he can, Felix’s head crests the top of the path, squinting suspiciously as he approaches.

“What is this supposed to be?”

Ah. All this effort on tweaking the rituals, and Sylvain hadn't got around to thinking about how he was going to explain it to the person it would probably matter most to. He opens his mouth to speak, but he's interrupted by a steady low swish against the ground. He and Felix look round as one to see Dimitri approaching, with Cybele and Snegurochka riding the mass of branches he's dragging behind him and giggling in each of their strange, unearthly ways.

"Boar," Felix says. "Don't tell me this nonsense was your idea."

Dimitri looks up, but does not speak until he has dragged the branches- and the girls- to a slow stop. “We created a funeral mound for those who fell. I know it is a long way from true penance, but Sylvain suggested it might help to settle their spirits in the afterlife.”

Felix huffs and crosses his arms across his chest. “They’re gone. They don’t need to be settled. What the living need is for you to get over yourself and stop smothering us with your blizzards.”

"His blizzards?"

Dimitri looks down and away, like a child caught out in the midst of doing something wrong. "It... I used to have a great many powers over the lands I rule. Now they are limited, and they... I find it harder to control."

Okay. Sylvain nods slowly. Okay, that's- that's certainly something to take in. Later, maybe. He's not sure he can handle a tense conversation between two apparent immortals while he's processing the idea that one of them has caused the endless winter he and his people have been trapped in for as long as anyone can remember.

There's a tiny chirruping noise from his left, and a cold touch to his right hand. When he looks down, he sees Cybele's hand in his left and Snegurochka's in his right, her pale ice forming patterns on the surface in a strange echo of Cybele's flowers. Their faces have that round, open look of concern he sometimes gets from the kids back at home, and in that moment he wants nothing more than to sweep them away from this mess. They could find somewhere to set up near the sea, a little house, and he could work out how to keep them fed and safe and happy.

But right now, he still has a job to do. So instead he squeezes their hands back and rises to his feet.

"So. Spine next?"

Dimitri looks up at him, squinting slightly. Then he nods. "Yes. We should be on our way."

Snegurochka squeaks and runs back to Palka, already putting her arms up to be lifted onto her back. Cybele follows suit, and as Dimitri begins trudging away, Sylvain gets them both in the saddle.

“Wait.”

Sylvain turns. He’d thought for a moment that his cape had snagged on something, but now he can see Felix’s fingers pinching a corner. His gaze is not as direct as Dimitri’s, his eyes skittering away from being met, and his lips narrow further shut when Sylvain looks round. But slowly he lifts his head, though he’s still looking sideways. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Urgh. Don’t tell me I need to spell it out.”

Sylvain gives him a small, bashful grin. “Fraid you might have to. I’m just a mortal, remember? Bit slower than you guys.”

“Be that as it may. You have- you are…” Felix’s brow furrows. “I have not seen him like this in centuries. He’s always been consumed by the dead, but he’s never done anything about it before. Not like this. So. Thank you.”

“Yeah, well. Thank you for the help. I’ll try and keep him safe, don’t worry.”

“You think I’m worried about him? Psh.” Another flower, this time unfurling in the hollow of his neck, petal upon soft rosy petal. “Worry about yourself, first. He might still wreck you.”

“Maybe I want him to,” Sylvain teases, his voice going a little sing-song around the edges. Felix groans and lets go of his cloak in favour of shoving at him.

“Just go already. Get out of my forest. _Go_.”


End file.
